The Distorted Heroine
by earan
Summary: The Goddesses are cruel: this is fact. And if she could throw away her destiny, she would.  Oneshot; originally written in 2009.


**The Distorted Heroine  
><strong>_by Earan_

**Disclaimer :**__The characters belong to Nintendo.

She wonders how it became this way.

The sea-bitten lands are littered with residues of dark creatures, freshly sent to their doom… wherever that was.

It's impossible, she thinks, because right now _this_ is doom.

This is _her_ doom.

She laughs to herself without amusement; certainly, the despair of the sea is rubbing off on her. Impa had warned her so, after all. One should not stare so intently within the depths of Lake Hylia… there are things, evil things that are said to stir in there.

Evil things like what? Zoras? Certainly not…

She laughs again, this time with contempt.

Today is her 16th birthday. Six years to the day, and one more when he will wake.

She is envious of him, who sleeps peacefully without having to witness the massacre of Hyrule and watch it slowly decay, hear the women and children dying, the screech of nails against glass shrieking into the night… it is routine now, almost like a twisted lullaby that pulls her into sleep on restless nights like these. Sadistically enough, she grew immunity to it, and on nights empty of those horrid sounds she can't sleep.

She couldn't save all of them, as much the guilt slashing her heart into vicious bits bit at her.

She stands, bored by the lack of challenge Ganondorf is sending. She's almost positive that she's gained mastery over this now, but no matter how many times she rids a land of evil, it always returns. The only way it will permanently flee, after all, is _his_ touch.

Curling her fists, she speeds away from the shore of Lake Hylia, anger pounding against her temples. She has to wait for _him_, because _he _is the chosen. She could have easily taken care of everything, but to be powerless and simply keep evil at bay for him to send the final blow – it was infuriating. Was she not perfectly capable? Was she not the one who foresaw this, the one who warned her father, the one who chose him first to do this?

She stops at the familiar corner of the castle in Hylian Field, a section of the place so poorly guarded by Ganondorf's incompetent minions. Looking through the gate bars, she smiles, because in this regard she at least retains the wit over him. She has broken into the castle using this hidden passage hundreds of times, never once getting caught or even arousing suspicion of an unwanted presence, much less the presence of the enemy of the State. His minions were surely stupider than they looked, and this was always a confident play for her. The Final Battle should be a cinch, she always thinks upon every successful breaking-and-entering.

But Impa chastises her each time, showering genuine anger upon her. But, like the shrieks in the night, she is immune to Impa's disappointment, too.

Today, however, she will pass. There is something about tonight that stops her from having her fun. Tonight, she doesn't feel so playful.

Instead, she curls her hands around the bars, and they tremble in her anger as she looks up at the black castle, clouded in red and looking like an eyesore from miles away in Hylian Field. This is _her_ castle, her majestic, white, gleaming castle of limestone and flags proudly having once swayed against the backdrop of a perfect, goddess-blessed scene. Hyrule was a picturesque utopia once.

Sure, her father wasn't without his political problems. He had to fight to convince most of his counselors and advisors. But it never came with the deaths of thousands of citizens, broken alliances among the races their ancestors had built for thousands of years, and ultimately the destruction of the entire land itself.

No, it was much simpler than that… Ganondorf is truly a warped mind, indeed. Possibly bullied or abused as a half-Gerudo, half-Hylian.

'I'll kill you,' she whispers through gritted teeth, spying on the Stalfos pacing a few feet away past the gates.

But, she remembers, _she_ won't be the one to kill him. It has to be the Chosen One. It has to be Link.

The gate shudders strongly, and the Stalfos notice. She gasps, and rolls quickly out of the way behind a bush, her heart beating like a Goron's belly. Adrenaline is pumping through her veins of panic at almost being caught over something stupid like letting her anger make so much noise against the metal gates.

_Link_.

His name is poison to her tongue. Her hands curl into fists at the thought of him.

A year ago, she had thrown away her so-called destiny for Calanon. Impa was in ruins. She had hunted her down like a bowman, but Impa had trained her too well. She evaded her for months and only found her when she allowed herself to be found…

Sitting behind the bush still, her breath gets faster at the thought of Calanon. Tears sting her eyes. She refuses to brush them away. She will cry, because then at least she'll know she's still a Hylian. A living thing. She isn't hollow. That's all Calanon is to her now: a memory, a self-reminder that she is not as empty as Ganondorf's cloned minions.

Calanon. He was the love of her life, she was sure. The goddesses had blessed her and she took this to mean that perhaps, she had a choice. Link would awaken in two years' time, anyway. What more could she do? Every time she rescued a village or a helpless family, a week later they were destroyed. What she did, she did in vain. Like water running through a cloth of holes, her actions were useless without Link.

'Holy mother of Nayru!' She screams, when a Stalfos' skeleton hand shoots through the space of the gate bars for her throat. He lets out an angry howl, rattling the gate like a clock tower's alarm in the night. She hurls a Deku Nut at the ground and is instantly clouded by the smoke.

She sprints, hearing the Stalfos call for his friends.

She runs. Her heart will not shut up. Her memories evoking Calanon's face, getting lost in thought, and the Stalfos' sudden move – her heart will not shut up. She isn't aware of the tears stinging her face until they cloud her vision.

Impa taught her how to sprint in bursts of speed and how to run for hours at a time, but in her unprepared moment she's caught off-guard and already feels tired. Her lungs feel sharp, begging for her to stop. Her heart is sore. So are her calves.

She slows down, bending over as she rests her palms on her thighs and heaving in breaths.

'Din damn it,' she breathes. '_Aaah_!' She topples over backwards, falling ungracefully on her back on the ground as a cloud of smoke explodes in front of her and a shadowy figure emerges, standing over her with an extended hand. Coughing, she takes it, and it hauls her back up to her feet.

'That was careless,' Impa says angrily. She throws a handkerchief at her, and she catches it, wiping the dust off of her face. 'I thought we'd already discussed this. You are not to leave past my supervision at night.'

She rolls her eyes, throwing the handkerchief back at Impa and waves her hand in the air dismissively. Without another word, she turns to walk in the opposite direction, back towards the castle gates. Impa grips her arm tightly.

'Your nails are digging into my arm,' she hisses.

'You are coming back with me to Kakariko. How dare you leave my sight after I made it clear that you are to stay with me,' Impa retorts, her eyes narrowing furiously.

In irritation, she shakes off her arm and stares back at her, determined not to blink.

'I'm not a child, Impa. I know how to get from Point A to Point B without getting caught,' she said. 'Perhaps if you trusted me –'

'But I do not trust you,' cut Impa, crossing her arms and looking down on her, 'and that is why I treat you like a child.'

She purses her lips, angry at how casually and nonchalantly Impa could mention the situation a year ago.

'I needed to leave. I was going crazy.'

Impa shook her head. 'Not good enough. We are going back now, come. Quickly! I heard that Stalfos' call. You want to go back and spy through the gates in curiosity after they are grouping together to search for the intruder?'

She expelled a deep breath, knowing Impa was right – but not wanting to admit it.

'I need air. I'll just stay in –'

'_No_.'

Without thinking, she whips out her last Deku Nut – she reminds herself to stock up tomorrow – and hurls it against the ground. Impa is too quick for this (she did train her this way) and rolls out of the way, avoiding the smoke from obscuring her, but this split-second action allows for her to start sprinting. She does not run towards the gates; Impa is right, and she can see three Stalfos in the distance past the gates. Instead, she runs along the path that will lead to the abandoned Market.

'_No_!'

Unexpectedly, Impa tackles her to the ground and as she makes contact with the path, she feels a sharp pain shoot up through her knees throughout her entire body.

'What in Nayru's name is the matter with you?' Impa hisses, pinning her to the ground. 'I will tie you up and carry you back if that's what it takes. You are to listen to me. Have you gone mad, trying to goad the Stalfos into attacking you and running straight into the nest of ReDeads? Do you _want_ Ganondorf to find you?'

'Maybe I do!' She spits out, trying to fight against Impa's hands pinning her wrists down. 'It's better than living under house arrest!'

'I've taught you nothing,' Impa says contemptuously. 'You are careless and you are still the ten-year-old girl who sent an innocent boy on a death quest. He is sleeping preparing for his destiny as we speak because of this, and you've forgotten it all last year. You sent the Hero on his quest and you yourself abandoned it.'

She lies still, unable to fight the angry tears forming. She wants to keep them in. Impa cannot see her weakness.

'I know my words are harsh.' Impa's tone changes slightly and her eyes stop trembling in fury. She tries to appear sympathetic. 'But you must understand that we are in peril until he awakes.'

In defeat, she slumps. Impa loosens her hold on her wrists and she stands up, holding out her hand again.

'Can we see him again?' She whispers.

Impa sighs, pondering this. After a few seconds, she shrugs and nods.

They walk to the temple in silence. She is still angry with Impa and Impa is still angry with her. She's not sure when their relationship took such an irreparable turn.

'There are more important things than young love,' Impa says as if having read her mind. 'Young love fades. You will get over it. But you are blessed with a very unique responsibility to restore this land – you and Link. That is incomparable to something as trivial as young love.'

She looks up at Impa, trying to convey hurt, but she's not sure how her expression is conveyed to her. Impa can be stony sometimes.

'We are not free,' Impa continues. 'We fill the storyboards of the Goddesses, like props. It sounds cruel, because it is. Yet we have no choice.'

'We do have a choice,' she interrupts. 'I made my choice.'

'That is _not_ a choice. That is throwing away your destiny and it came with grave consequences. If you turn away from your pre-destined life again, I may not be so lucky to save you next time. You throwing away your fate means the destruction of the world we know.'

'I don't want that responsibility!'

'You have no choice in the matter.'

'I _do_! I made my choice. I'm clearly not the one destined to save the world, so why keep trying? I was happy.'

'How long would that have lasted for?' Impa stops walking, putting her hands on her hips. 'You did not make a choice. You tried to hide from it, but it caught up with you! Calanon would have lived if you never met him –'

'Stop, please,' she holds up a hand and walks past Impa. 'Just stop talking. We're here.'

Impa shakes her head and follows her inside.

The temple is eerie. If she strains her ears, she can ear a faint choir. The ceilings stretch upwards forever and the stained glass windows cast peculiar shadows on the neat, marble stone floor from the moonlight, like shapes flickering.

This is the only place Ganondorf is not able to touch.

Pretending like she is some sort of heroine walking through flames, she marches past the pedestal holding up the three stones – the sight of which boils her blood in fury – and walks through the open archway into the circular room. The blue aura that fills the room calms her previous anger, and she can see him – lying in peace, there, in the middle of the platform. She envies his peace. He is lying in nakedness, covered and bathed by the blue glow with his hands folded together on his stomach, his eyes closed with no hint of movement, and Navi the fairy just as motionless as he beside him.

The anger rises again. She doesn't realize her hands are trembling until Impa comes up beside her, holding her still.

Through the years, he has been growing in this blue light, surrounded by that cursed orb that wouldn't let her touch him. His face was growing more chiseled and the bright blond fading in his hair into a dull, straw colour, and through the years, she just wanted to touch him, lay a hand on his skin, to feel that texture of human flesh to know that he was real and not simply a figment of her imaginations.

Oh Nayru, she envies his peace…

But she hates him, too. Once he awakes, he will get to be the hero who came just in time after her useless attempts at saving the world failed. He will be saved from the gradual plaguing of his view of the decaying world. Instead, he will be given the luxury of shock, and it will give him a motivation that she herself was not blessed with.

Apathy will not touch him as the Hero of Time, and for this most of all, she envies him. He will have that will, that drive, all stemmed from the hope that one day Hyrule will be beautiful again, the same motivation she started out with that she lost somewhere along the way.

All because he was saved from having to watch helplessly as the world died before him, just as she did.

Is.

'One more year,' whispers Impa, holding her hand in encouragement. This, she knows, is Impa's way of saying sorry for her earlier reprimand.

'Yeah,' she murmurs, staring intently at Link as if any second now, she will see him twitch in movement. 'One more year.'


End file.
